San Francisco County Biographies
THOMAS MORRIN
Transcribed by Marilyn R. Pankey.
This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm
A consulting engineer with offices in the Phelan Block, Thomas
Morrin has been on the Pacific coast for half a century, and as a machinist and
mechanical engineer, his work has brought him in touch with many constructive
developments, and with many of the prominent men of California.
He was born at Waterloo, New York, August 6, 1853.
Thomas Morrin acquired a public school education in New York State, and for
two terms attended the academy at Seneca Falls, New York. The war having broken
up the family and home, Thomas, then ten years of age, was farmed out for board
and clothes only to a man named Caleb Barnum for three years. Barnum was an
interesting character, being a veteran of the War of 1812 and eighty-six years
of age when Thomas Morrin went to him. Barnum was a deacon in the Presbyterian
church in Junius, New York, and in 1834 was elected a member of the New York
Legislature. Though he lived 180 miles from Albany, he walked both ways, and
collected his mileage. Through the assistance of his brother, William, Thomas
Morrin was apprenticed in the spring of 1866 to a factory manufacturing woolen
cloth. He put in an eleven-hour day at wages of 70 cents, paying $4 a week for
board and lodging. In about a year the mill closed down, and he was then
apprenticed as a machinist at the Island Works at Seneca Falls. This plant
manufactured rotary steam fire engines. It was under the management of H. C.
Silsby. In May, 1871, Thomas Morrin entered the employ of the Judson Governor
Works at Rochester, New York, remaining there until March, 1872, when he was
invited by the Smalley Brothers to become a machinist in their plant at Bay
City, Michigan. Mr. William Smalley had been superintendent and consulting
engineer at the island Works under H. V. Silsby. During the winter of 1872-73,
while in the employ of the Bay City Iron Works,Mr. Morrin built the first forged
steel sash used in gang saws, the first used in this country and probably in the
world.
In May, 1873, Mr. Morrin arrived in California. His first employment was
with the Risdon Iron Works then at Beale and Howard streets in San Francisco.
While there he was drafted with a force of men to the Pacific mail docks. While
there he worked on repairs of the old side-wheeled steamships, Montana,
Constitution, Ancon and Nevada. October 3, 1873, he entered the service of the
Empire Foundry Company at Marysville. This company manufactured hydraulic
giants used in hydraulic mining, the giants being made under the Hoskins patent.
These giants were shipped to Formosa, New Zealand, Australia, India, Russia and
other countries, as well as to all the California and other United States placer
mines. Two and one-half years later Mr. Morrin became an employe of the
Marysville Foundry, managed and operated by the firm of Prescott, Scott and
Eckart. His next employment was with John C. Fall, James Gould and James
O'Donnell at Mill City, Nevada, where they owned a foundry and machine shop that
made a specialty of mining machinery. At that time Governor Fall was operating
the mines at Unionville and Star Peak, and he and his associates had other mines
in operation north of Mill City, and the Rye Patch group. The principal
production of these mines was silver.
From Mill City Mr. Morrin returned to Marysville, and while there he worked
on the first combined header and thresher designed by Mr. John Driver of
Marysville. It was so bulky and cumbersome that the farmers thought it
impracticable, and after one year's operation the manufacture was discontinued
until the gas motor came into general use, making it possible to dispense with
the heavy steam boiler, fuel storage and water tank. The Marysville Foundry, it
may be noted, built much of the machinery used in sinking the deep mining shafts
on the Comstock lode and the mills for gold and silver recovery in California
and Nevada. In the spring of 1877, Mr. Morrin entered the service of Rusby and
Merry at Chico, and in June, 1878, went to Glenbrook, Nevada, as an employee of
the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company, of which D.O. Mills was
principal owner, while D. L.Bliss was president and general manager. Mr. Morrin
was with the lumber company three and one-half years, and then became toolmaker
and general mechanical expert for the San Leandro Agricultural Works at San
Leandro. Later he went to Newark, California, as general foreman of the machine
shops of the Pacific Coast Railway Company, operated by James G. Fair and A.
L.Davis.
In the fall of 1883, at the solicitation of Mr. Bliss, Mr. Morrin again
entered the employ of the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company as master
mechanic of the railroad, steamboats and saw mills. In July, 1888, his two
children having reached an age when they required schools and settled social
conditions, Mr. Morrin went to work for the Western Beet Sugar Company at
Watsonville, California. This was the first successful sugar beet factory on
the coast. He remained with Spreckels two years as machinist, general foreman
and operating engineer of the plant.
On July 20, 1890, he returned to San Francisco and entered the employe of
the Atlas Iron Works as machinist foreman in one of the departments. After a
short time he was transferred to the Pacific Rolling Mills. In January, 1892,
he again became an employ of D. O. Mills, as chief engineer of the Mills
Building at Bush and Montgomery streets. This building was then in course of
construction. Resigning, he opened offices in San Francisco, December 1, 1906,
as a mechanical engineer, making a specialty of mechanical equipment of
buildings. Mr. Morrin, on July 1, 1920, withdrew from active participation in
the engineering field, and now confines his work exclusively to consultation
work, valuations, appraisements, inspections and reports and is still engaged in
this work.
Mr. Morrin married at Sacramento July 15, 1877, Miss Irene Hoyt Brown. She
was born in New York City, daughter of Kenneth and Sarah (Scriver) Brown. Three
children were born to their marriage, the only son dying in infancy; Miss Mary
Irene Morrin and Katherine Hortense Morrin. Katherine Hortense married Dr. John
T. Kergan, practicing physician of Oakland.
During his long residence and professional work in California, Mr. Morrin
has acquired a number of business interests. He was one of the first depositors
and stockholders in the Banca Popolare Fugazi, which was established in San
Francisco in 1907, and is the only member on its board of directors not an
Italian. He is also financially interested in the California Wine Association,
the Honolulu Plantation, the First National Bank of Suisun, the Solano County
Savings Bank of Suisun and the Mission Savings Bank.
Mr. Morrin is a republican, has been active in party politics. He is a
member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Institute of Heating
and Ventilating Engineers of Great Britain, the Engineers Club of San Francisco.
He is a Catholic and was a charter member of Council No. 615 of the Knights of
Columbus.
Source: "The San Francisco Bay Region" by Bailey Millard Vol. 3 page 169-173.
Published by The American Historical Society, Inc. 1924.